


The Poison Runs Straight to the Marrow

by Ponderosa



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Angst and Porn, Bottom Herc, Consent Issues, Daddy Issues, Drift Side Effects, Dubious Consent, Incest, Issues Everywhere, M/M, Parent/Child Incest, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-24
Updated: 2013-09-24
Packaged: 2017-12-27 11:58:24
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,159
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/978583
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ponderosa/pseuds/Ponderosa
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It drives him a little mad being inside Chuck’s head. It’s a slap across the face every time they drift, and leaves them both raw, peeled back strand by strand down to the marrow. In the morning there will be silence at breakfast, trip-wire tension and grinding teeth. Later, if they’re both in quarters at the same time, he’s likely to feel the slam of Chuck’s shoulder against his, the kid jockeying for space when there’s never enough between them. There will be sullen looks, disappointment, an encyclopedia’s worth of things that they’ll never say.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Poison Runs Straight to the Marrow

**Author's Note:**

> Heed the tagged warnings! There are consent issues everywhere due to the side-effects of drifting. Chuck is the aggressor here, and Herc is not actively unwilling but he's also aware that he's being influenced by feelings that don't belong to him. Please let me know if you catch any typos as this wasn't a fic I was entirely expecting to write so it is mostly unbeta'd!

It doesn’t matter that his son is grown, Herc listens intently in the dark for Chuck’s next breath just as he used to do when the kid was in nappies. The rhythm of Chuck’s breathing is stilted, meaning they’re both lying awake and sleepless and hating the thumping drone of the fans pushing air through the facility. Herc kicks off his sheet and drops an elbow over his eyes. He wills his mind to shut off again, to pull him back into dreams--hopefully new ones that aren’t full of air raid sirens and choking dust or heavy with shadows and the salt-taste of semen.

It drives him a little mad being inside Chuck’s head. It’s a slap across the face every time they drift, and leaves them both raw, peeled back strand by strand down to the marrow. In the morning there will be silence at breakfast, trip-wire tension and grinding teeth. Later, if they’re both in quarters at the same time, he’s likely to feel the slam of Chuck’s shoulder against his, the kid jockeying for space when there’s never enough between them. There will be sullen looks, disappointment, an encyclopedia’s worth of things that they’ll never say.

Half a room away, bedsprings squeak and squeal, then comes the quiet slap of bare feet padding towards the head. Max snorts and shakes his head, tags on his collar jingling quietly before he settles down again and his soft, doggie snores return. Herc must’ve dozed off with him, because between one heartbeat and the next there’s a presence at the foot of his bunk. The air thickens like a brewing storm, and Herc doesn’t dare pull away his arm and sit up to find out what face Chuck’s pulling in the pregnant dark.

The moment stretches so long his skin’s crawling. “What is it?”

Chuck doesn’t answer, his silence a rare and effective weapon when usually the kid lets fly with the insults. Herc sighs as he pushes up to one elbow. He squints at the sharp slice of light coming from the head; it’s not that bright really, but he settles back enough to keep it from cutting across his face. “Something wrong?” he says, his stomach growing tight and worried. His gaze skims Chuck’s silhouette, settling eventually on where his fists are balled, knuckles tucked so tight they form a harsh right angle.

Experience versus youth is a toss-up; he’s pretty sure he’d come out on top in a no-holds straight-up brawl, and yet there’s a reason they don’t spar anymore. Going head to head is a fight they’d both lose, and no matter how much Chuck feels the need to prove he’s better than his pop, with his attitude, letting him win isn’t an option on the table.

He’s teasing out the right way to say go back to bed when Chuck moves: he lunges forward in a stumbling lurch that aims those fists not at Herc but beside him. Chuck’s thick arms cage him in as the kid hangs there for long seconds, his eyes hard and angry and feral. Then his brows go tight, deepen the lines between them, and in a fresh burst of motion his weight drops to his forearms and his head tips to rest against the center of Herc’s chest. Quick, rough breaths warm the front of Herc’s undershirt. His hand lifts, hovering above Chuck’s shoulder. He holds it there, hesitating, reluctant to drop it down to feel the shaking with a bare hand on bare skin.

“I can’t sleep and you know it. I keep--” Chuck says, the rest of his words tangling into a frustrated snarl. He sucks a harsh breath in through his teeth.

Herc’s jaw aches in sympathy. He swallows thickly. He can taste the memories in the back of his throat, slippery and stinging. Not the dusty old images of a six-year-old boy afraid to sleep alone or the bone-shuddering howl of Scissure, he’s full to bursting with the raw, hurtful memories that drill into his skull every time they deploy. The ones Chuck will be looking to renew, prowling the halls angry and needy and stocking up on a fresh arsenal of bloody knuckles and bruised knees. It’s only a matter of time before he’ll be sucking down some engineer’s sweaty prick and pulling off to mouth crap like, “Is it good, Daddy?”

“You should try counting sheep,” Herc says, feigning calm. The steady whump of the air ducts mocks the speed of his pulse.

Chuck shudders, and the ripple goes all the way down his spine. “Keep the advice to yourself, you worthless cunt.” He spits out the words and twists, cheekbone digging hard against Herc’s sternum. He chokes on a deep breath as his weight shifts, fist slamming into the mattress at Herc’s hip. His hand flattens out and slowly closes again, the sheet beneath Herc pulling taut.

“Don’t do this,” Herc says, hushed and fearful and _knowing_. It’s been a building wave, rising drift after drift, the edge crumbling now and ready to crash. He begs once more for Chuck to stop, but a plea works on his kid about as well as a threat. Herc’s abs twitch when Chuck’s hand creeps up under his tank, fingers splaying along his side. Even knowing it’d come to this one day, it’s a hard truth to swallow. He’d screwed up his own kid in so many ways, raised him to become one of the best Rangers in the Corps but never could get him to see sense. What’d come of him shoving Chuck off now? He can drift easily enough with another Ranger, but Chuck can’t. And the program needs his idiot fucking kid.

Herc drops back in defeat. He can’t protect Chuck from this--it’s a knife in the guts or a bullet in the heart either way. He can’t even summon up the revulsion that he should. Fuck it all but he’s already getting hard. He wants it too--he can’t _not_ want it after living in Chuck’s skull for hours on end. _Is it good, Daddy?_

Chuck strokes Herc’s side, asking without words, his mouth dragging restlessly over cloth as he grows bolder. He’s getting ready to push Herc into action, mouth off like he does to the ground crew until they give it to him hard enough he can’t walk straight. And that’s what gets Herc the most, hits him even now, when his hindbrain is trying to run the show. Chuck never really gets off from a cock ploughing into him and it’s Herc’s fault entirely. Stacker’s the only pilot Herc knows who can come into the Drift without dragging a lifetime’s worth of baggage with him, and while Herc’s good, he’s not that good. Certain things linger, core traits that bleed across the bridge. His cock’s standing full attention now as he thinks of Angela--the way she’d sit on her heels between his spread knees, smiling as she slicked up her favorite cock, the powder blue of the harness pale against her skin. Christ, it’s worse that the kid inherited her smile.

“If you want this”--Herc catches Chuck’s arm at the wrist--“we do it my way.”

Chuck’s head jerks up like a marionette’s, his eyes glittering. His lips part and he lets loose with a soft, breathy moan that goes straight to Herc’s balls.

“On your back,” Herc says. He makes it an order. It’s a weak attempt at an out--if Chuck rebels then he can turn around and go back to doing his best at ignoring the sting when the kid goes out trawling for daddies.

But Chuck rolls easily--obedient for the first goddamn time in his life--his body tucked briefly beside Herc’s on the cot before Herc gets to his feet. After taking one steadying breath, Herc strips off his tank top and shorts without a pause between. His tags settle familiarly on his chest as he straightens up. Chuck’s eyeing his dick hungrily, like he’ll die if he doesn’t get it right now. Well, tough tits, Herc thinks as he gives Chuck’s bent knee a slap.

“Stop slobbering and get your kit off.” Herc rifles through the shelf above his bunk, nudging aside stacks of old letters, ratty paperbacks, dog treats, and other assorted junk to find a rubber and some lube.

Chuck’s breathing has gone shallow again, and the slight flush on his face darkens into a full-on blush. Naked, he hooks a hand under one knee, ready to spread himself. He’s practically squirming as Herc pops the cap on the bottle, his teeth digging into his lip as he waits for the raw, hard fuck he thinks is coming his way.

He’s ignored the way Chuck looks at him for years--the glances, stolen and otherwise, that he’s only confronted with when there are bigger things to worry about than his own son wanting to jump him. The part of him that wants to stop this, who should’ve cuffed the kid on the head for even thinking about coming into his bed, well, that part is buried. His conscience is trapped in the center of a black, rotting onion; the layers around it are packed tight with longing not his own. The brightest memory, only days old, is him fresh out of the shower: he’d seen himself not in the fog of the mirror where he stood and ran a razor over his throat, but through the distortion of the Drift. He’d found himself across the room, his eyes drawn to the white of the towel and the faint outline of cock beneath. He’d remembered it as Chuck did: getting hard where he sat, his mouth going wet, thinking how his old man was still a fierce bastard but he was going softer around the middle and that wasn’t going to change no matter how many miles he ran through the Shatterdome’s corridors each day.

Herc measures the weight of Chuck’s gaze now. From the looks of it, the kid isn’t spending any time thinking about anything other than getting fucked sloppy. His grip tightens on the bottle before he flips the cap.

“Said we’d do this my way,” Herc says. He widens his stance, slippery chill of lube pooling in his palm and dripping down his fingers as he reaches back behind himself to slick up his crack. He jams his fingers in his hole to get it greased, then squirts more lube onto his hand to do it again. “Nothing to say about how you always wanted to stick it to your old man?” he says, tone coming off more harsh than he means it to. Maybe it’s guilt putting an edge on his words--there’s a dark tar pit worth of it bubbling deep under the surface. A few days post-handshake and he’ll feel it, regret it like he should, and think back with loathing on the swooping thrill of anticipation that lights up all his nerves when he straddles his boy.

“Ooh, Da--” Chuck starts then sputters, his hands snapping to Herc’s sides like magnets. “ _Fuck_.” And that’s the last coherent sound that comes out of his mouth as Herc settles on top of him, slick skin and balls rubbing up along the hard length of Chuck’s dick.

It’s been a while since he’s felt this, more months than he cares to admit that he’s had a woman or a man ready and willing to fuck him stupid. Herc scrapes his teeth over his lower lip, trying to settle the jittery thrill in his belly.

“I know you can take it like a champ, but can you give as good as you get?” he says, giving his hips a filthy roll so that thick heat drags right over his hole. He tears open the condom packet with his teeth, spitting bits of foil onto the floor. If there’s to be an answer, it’s cut off when Herc reaches down between his legs and takes hold of his son’s dick, rolling on the rubber with slippery fingers and wedging the slick head of Chuck’s cock right where it needs to be for him to sit right down on it. He does, taking Chuck full to the hilt in one easy slide.

He goes soft as Chuck’s dick splits him wide, the faint ache fading quickly as he shifts and gets re-accustomed to the feel. “It’s okay,” he says, tracking Chuck’s gaze to the limp curl of his cock. “Happens every time. Just give me a few.”

“Every time, huh?” Chuck says, finding his voice. “Take it up the arse often, do you?”

Of course it’s fucking now that Chuck aims a swing, after they’ve gone this far. After he’s known the feeling of his own son’s cock shoved up into his body. After there’s absolutely no going back. “Not as often as you take it in the mouth, _boy_.” Herc grabs Chuck by the chin, fingers fanning across his jaw. It was just like the kid to sabotage the moment, even though he wants it so badly he can’t keep still, his hips moving fitfully as he tries to slide out and fuck back in for the harsh, pleasured burn. “You think now’s the time? Dying to know what I don’t bring into the Drift?”

Chuck’s gaze drops, lingers somewhere to the left of Herc’s shoulder. “Or is that your way of saying this isn’t what you want?” Herc’s thumb drags over Chuck’s mouth, revealing a flash of white teeth. He releases his hold and jabs Chuck in the chest. “If you want to be belly down and not look me in the eye, you can go find some asshole crewman who wants to brag about nailing a Ranger.”

It takes a few breaths before Chuck’s gaze meets his again. “This is fine,” he says. His grip on Herc’s sides hardens.

Fighting to keep his voice steady, Herc says, “Good, now prove you’re not a piss-poor lay and fuck me hard again.”

He loses his next breath from the upward slam of Chuck’s hips. “That’s it,” Herc says. He rocks his weight forward, grabbing the shelf for balance. His jaw clamps tight as the rest of his muscles ease. He adjusts quickly to the simple mechanics of fucking, and the hard slap of their bodies mirrors the heavy thump of his heartbeat. For a moment, he’s floating--present and not, like the first few seconds of a handshake, but he’s torn out of it by the way kid’s eyes burn into him with a familiar seething, volcanic and raw. That’s the look that measures him and finds him lacking. Every damn time it stings to see himself through such callous eyes, and worse still to know that if his kid could reign in his ego, Herc would be obsolete. If Chuck could find a co-pilot his own age, Striker would be faster still. She’d be fucking _unbeatable_.

Herc’s heart thuds so hard against his ribs that each beat echoes in his bones. He puts a hand over Chuck’s and pries the kid’s fingers loose. He guides them to his dick, thickened but not yet hard, and there’s poison on his tongue when he says: “Get a handful, since it’s all you ever think about.”

Chuck’s punishing rhythm breaks, attention shifting from his own pleasure to focus on the feel of Herc’s cock beneath his fingers. His touch fumbles along Herc’s length, turning into a slow stroke as his other hand wanders away from Herc’s hip. Chuck’s nervous thrill becomes infectious, and the bitter taste in Herc’s mouth fades as his tongue floods wet. Chuck’s eyes are heavy now, mesmerized, focused on the cock growing harder and harder in his hand. It feels fucking amazing, like his prick is simply an extension of Chuck’s, bodies synced in a way that shouldn’t happen outside of the pod. They move together like a wave, rising and falling, not so much about the slam of flesh meeting flesh as it is about the connection point between them. They each make a sound and it harmonizes, blends into a single soft sigh, and then there’s a charge in the air again, a building tension that strays from sexual. Knuckles graze down Herc’s front, almost tender and very certainly afraid.

“Dad…” Chuck’s brows are knit together, deepening the line between them.

Herc folds forward, his fingers pushing through Chuck’s short hair. He puts his mouth near the fine hair at Chuck’s temple. For all the silences between them, this can’t be what breaks the dam. It simply can’t. “Shh. If you’re not saying we stop, just--” Herc’s not sure any longer what the morning will bring: the return of strained silence that carries a heavier weight; smug triumph and something his kid can finally hold over his head besides youth; or, and this he fears, the world tilted on its axis and a lack of regret.

Chuck’s head turns towards his, the motion jerky like he fights it until the last, when his mouth drags against the stubble on Herc’s jaw. “Just what, _Daddy_?”

He braces a hand on the metal bedframe, fingers leaching the chill from the metal. It shouldn’t turn him on, hearing that shit come out of his son’s mouth, but if it’s Chuck’s vicious streak slinging it at him, it backfires. His nerves are lit up all over again, the tingling in his limbs growing unbearable. “Just shut your damn trap and keep going.”

“Love it, don’t you?” Chuck says. Maybe he’s convincing himself and maybe not. He gives Herc’s cock a firm squeeze, strokes it root to tip as he nuzzles his lips against Herc’s neck.

He can’t answer, not honestly. Right now he does; he loves it so damn much he fucks himself on Chuck’s dick like it’s his last night on earth. He lets gravity carry him down to meet the upward snap of the kid’s hips, the air driven out of his lungs over and over again.

“Keep going,” he says, finding it impossible to catch his breath. His mouth goes dry at the thought of giving up the reins entirely, letting the kid go wild and fuck him black and blue, but that’s always his problem, isn’t it--not giving Chuck boundaries. “That’s it. Nice and steady.”

Chuck can’t keep up the pace forever and Herc can see him struggling to hold on. He’d fucked his daddy hard again but of course he’s not going to take it well if he pops off first. Herc’s grip tightens on the bedframe, and he slows his own pace. “I’m not done with you yet,” he says. “Hold off before you embarrass yourself.” He curls down again, mouth finding Chuck’s and breathing in his breath for a long moment before licking into the kiss they’ve been skirting around for ages.

The kiss tastes like a live wire. Tentative and open-mouthed, their tongues touch and part, sparks sizzling with each wet swipe. Herc tires of the faint, tentative licks first, pushing a groan into Chuck’s mouth before sucking hard on the kid’s tongue. They’ve stopped moving almost entirely, the bedsprings falling silent and sure, Max is snoring like a buzzsaw over in the corner, but the only sounds Herc really registers are the rough, panting moans that deepen as he seals his mouth over Chuck’s. Another hard suck, a deep thrusting lick, and Chuck chases the kiss when he tries to break it. Christ Almighty, but he’s going to burn in Hell for this.

Hips stilled, body sheathing Chuck entirely, Herc lets himself be satisfied by the fullness alone. Again, he’s the first to break, rising high on his knees, his thighs tense and knotted before he sinks down again. Chuck doesn’t try and wrest control away from him, he just watches with lust-heavy eyes as Herc fucks into his fist and onto his dick.

“That’s it,” he murmurs, gaze held to Chuck’s, “that’s a good boy.”

He’s hard as steel when he rocks forward a little too far and Chuck’s cock slips out, leaving him empty and wanting. And he stays hard somehow when the head of Chuck’s cock presses against him urgently, plunges back in and drives a curse out of him. He makes a hungry, impatient sound and arches his back, hands clamped to his ankles as he works his core and grinds down. If the kid’s still fighting the need to come, it’s become a bit of a competition.

He mumbles another string of encouragement as Chuck’s hand slides up his thigh, damp palm dragging over fine hairs. He’s so damn full that his pulse throbs in every inch of his body, and he clenches down on the thickness of Chuck’s dick to feel it all the more. The sound his son makes is so fucking obscene that he feels a hard shot of lust ratchet up his spine, and then there’s no time to reach for a tissue or the bedsheet before he’s losing it--coming like a goddamn firehose, spurts ripped out of him in hard spasms that he can feel head to toe.

“Fuck,” Chuck says, and Herc looks down to see the kid’s chest striped white. He sounds pissed but the look on his face is anything but. It’s reverent-- _almost_ \--for a brief moment, before he’s got his hands back on Herc’s hips, fingers digging in to claw against bone and soft flesh both. He makes another low, obscene sound as he grinds up into Herc’s body. “You’re a right dirty bastard, aren’t you, old man?”

“And yet I’m not the cock-hungry slut who’s given it up to a third of the men on base,” Herc snaps, succeeding only in bringing the fierce glint back into Chuck’s eyes.

“More like half,” Chuck says, and he slowly and deliberately scoops up a fingerful of Herc’s come.

Herc tips his head back instinctively, expecting Chuck to flick the bit of jizz at him, but Chuck just raises his hand to his own mouth and sucks it straight off his finger with an exaggerated moan. The slight flutter of his eyelids and the hard throb of his dick tells the truth of the matter though, that the taste of Herc’s come has put him right on the edge. Herc is moving before he knows it, palm skidding over the rest of the mess glistening on Chuck’s chest. He can’t watch that a second time. He absolutely can’t. Letting himself be fucked by his pervert son marks an indelible stain on his conscience, and he’s halfway down the road already thinking about the next time because Chuck surely has. The kid’ll have him in tatters, crawl up between his legs for a mouthful of hard cock and demand a fresh load right on his tongue. The program is already hurting for pilots; it can’t lose the both of them.

“Christ,” Herc mutters, screwing his eyes shut and praying for clarity. All he gets though is to share in the shiver that precedes the desperate upward grind of Chuck’s hips and the hot pulse of his cock.

“Bet you regret the rubber now, old man. Would’ve had you shitting out spunk for days,” Chuck says, and the slanted smile on the kid’s mouth tears Herc in two. He gets up unsteadily, using the corner of the sheet to wipe himself off before perching on the edge of the bunk.

His legs shake. His hands, too.

And still he leans in when Chuck sits up beside him. He can smell his come on Chuck’s skin and breath, and he doesn’t say a word when Chuck kisses him and he tastes it, he simply kisses back.

Herc watches as Chuck ties off the used condom and throws it into the bin. He makes a show of stretching, his fingers skimming lightly over his chest, and reaches down to grab Herc’s tank and pull it on over his head. “I’m taking the dog out,” he says, and there’s a hint of a wobble in his balance as he crosses to his bunk to fetch a pair of clean trousers and Max’s leash. And maybe there’s a hint of a wobble too in his voice when he yanks open the door and says, “Don’t wait up.”

When he can’t stand the silence anymore, Herc drags all the sheets off his bunk and crams them into the chute for a wash. He does a hundred and fifty pushups. He bloodies his knuckles on the wall. He stands in a hot shower and jerks off at the memory of his son fucking him raw. Eventually he lies down on his bare mattress and dreams of Scissure’s screams and Angela’s crooked smile, and when he wakes in a cold sweat he’s relieved to hear Chuck’s soft, even snoring.

Herc slows his breathing to match. He counts each exhale. 

There’s no knowing what the morning will bring.


End file.
